New towing policy to check breakdown vehicles underway

Mr Adonteng indicated that a revised version of L.I 2180, which would be put before Parliament for approval, had made provisions for the towing of disabled vehicles from the road.

He said the L.I had provided three options for the owner of a breakdown vehicle to promptly get it towed from the road

A Daily Graphic analysis of statistics from the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) over a 10-year period, spanning 2012 to 2022, revealed that out of the 23,490 people who were killed in road crashes, 687 of them occurred through abandoned vehicles on the road.

Similarly, 62 persons died from road crashes involving disabled vehicles in 2017; 44 in 2018; 45 in 2019, with 2020, 2021 and 2022 recording 95, 89 and 82, respectively. Juxtaposing that with the 58,156 persons killed in road crashes over the past three decades (1991 to 2023) revealed that 1,687 of those deaths could have been avoided had disabled vehicles on the shoulders of the roads been towed as required by law.

2180 requires owners of disabled vehicles to remove them from the road in case of a breakdown

The government, acting through the NRSA, signed an agreement with the Road Safety Management Services Limited (RSMSL), a private entity, in October 2016, for the towing of breakdown and abandoned vehicles on roads.

However, this policy was resisted by members of the public for lack of proper engagement, hence there is currently no effective way of promptly towing disabled vehicles from the road to prevent crashes and fatalities.